Post-Final Boss

Let me see if I get the grand scheme here, Benjamin Button. The jerries thought that if I purged all my souls, I wouldn't have my #LifeHack, and at least one of you could kill me. So when the very fine people of the Nazi military, those KKK-looking sons-of-bitches, and Alexander Motherfucking Anderson couldn't do the job, you thought you — you — were the guy?

— Alucard, speaking to Walter, Hellsing Ultimate Abridged

The Post-Final Boss is a boss fight that cleans up the plot after you fight the real Final Boss. They're more common in RPGs than other types of games, mainly because RPGs focus more on plot, but they can be found in any game that has a story. Handled well, it can be very cathartic, especially if the final boss was particularly difficult.

Note that this is distinct from Anti-Climax Boss. An Anti-Climax Boss is a lot of build-up for no payoff; a boss that's meant to be challenging in theory, but misses the mark in practice. A Post-Final Boss is meant to be a brief spike in the action before all conflicts are properly resolved, and everything is summed up. For that reason, a Post-Final Boss will be comparatively easy to defeat. If handled poorly though, a Post-Final Boss can also be an Anti-Climax Boss, particularly if they are given an unnecessary amount of build-up.

Sometimes, the Post-Final Boss fight occurs after the Evil Plan has been foiled, but The Villain Must Be Punished. Sometimes, the Post-Final Boss is actually much stronger than the final boss storywise, which prevents them from being defeated by conventional means and thus requiring a story-related intervention to defeat (which ends up making the battle much easier than the battle with the final boss gameplay-wise).

See also Post-Final Level, which is this concept applied to levels.

As this is an Ending Trope, there are spoilers. You have been warned.

Compare Post-Climax Confrontation, Clipped-Wing Angel, Rival Final Boss, Dragon Their Feet. Contrast True Final Boss, Pre-Final Boss.

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Examples:

Video Games

• At the end of the Alien campaign in Aliens vs. Predator 2, after a difficult battle against 2 Predators, the game ends with you fighting Dr. Eisenberg, a human with a shotgun who goes down after one hit. Hilariously, you can lose this fight if you're not careful, as shotguns hit hard and you likely will be at low health after fighting the Predators.
• ANNO: Mutationem: After the final fight against C's Nidhogg form atop The Consortium's facility, Ann is told to go through a procedure that will permanently sever her connection with Hinterland, followed by one last battle against Amok to seal her away.
• After you defeat the final boss in Armored Warriors, it utters its last words and explodes, leaving only its now-defenseless head behind. Then you can land the final blow.
• Geldoblame in Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean. Despite its mountain of hit points, it barely hits at all, has no defensive capacities, and gets one-shotted by a Spirit Attack. That being said, it has a kickass battle theme that's only heard here.
• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • Batman: Arkham City has Harley Quinn's Revenge, a DLC set some time after the ending of the main game which deals with Harley's Villainous Breakdown after the game and her attempt at revenge for the death of The Joker. Since this is Harley Quinn we're talking about, she's not exactly that big of a threat and the DLC is more to wrap up loose ends.
  • After defeating Bane in Batman: Arkham Origins, you fight some groups of mooks until you get to the Joker, who goes down rather easily.
• Bayonetta:
  • In the first game, after destroying the Jubileus, the creator, the credits roll. Unless you were expecting No Ending, it's clear that there's more; it turns out these are fake credits, and Jeanne will show up at the end to remind Bayonetta that the statue used to summon Jubileus can't be allowed to crash back down to Earth, so you and her team up to tear it apart as one last action. Then during the credits (the real ones), you'll also replay the original fight against Jeanne. You'll only have 30 seconds to do it, though, so her health and blocking/dodging abilities are incredibly stunted here.
  • Bayonetta 2: After defeating the final boss Loptr as Aesir, Loki depowers him in a cutscene, and you get to wail on Loptr with near impunity before Rider Kicking him into oblivion with Omne.
• Possibly the earliest known example: In the original NES Bionic Commando and its remake, after killing Hitler/Master D/The Leader, you must escape the base (or in the remake, the Albatross airship). As you climb out of the soon to explode base, you face one last enemy standing in the way of your escape: the cyborg soldier who was a boss in earlier levels. Interestingly enough, there's nothing stopping you from just ignoring him and continuing your climb.
• In Bloodborne, if you choose to fight Gehrman instead of allowing him to Mercy Kill you and free you from the Hunter's Dream, he gives you a suitably challenging fight for a final boss. After defeating him, the Moon Presence descends and eats you, forcing you to take Gehrman's place as the new host of the Dream. However, if you have consumed three Thirds of Umbilical Cord, you've ascended to the level of a Great One yourself, and can resist its attempts, so it's forced to actually fight you. Since it's a Reality Warper that isn't built to fight its opponents physically, it goes down without a hitch. It does have a dangerous, hard to avoid and damaging attack, but it just reduces your health to one hitpoint and cannot instantly kill you.
• Borderlands:
  • At the end of the final Borderlands DLC (which is also the end of the Borderlands story proper), you fight a humongous Claptrap robot-fortress. After you blow that up, the 3-foot-tall Claptrap robot himself jumps out to fight you. He's pretty nimble and has a fairly damaging close-range hadoken move, but otherwise has relatively low health and damage output and is a pretty easy fight compared to the usual major boss battles in the game.
  • Borderlands 2 has two examples:
    • The final fight against Piston in the DLC Torgue's Campaign of Carnage is him riding the humongous tank: The Badassasaurus Rex. As soon as it goes down, Piston comes out to face you head on, but he's an absolute pushover in comparison to his tank.
    • After defeating Jackenstein, you're poised to fight Professor Nakayama, and then he defeats himself.
• BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm has one. After stopping Arianna’s plan and successfully banishing STORM, Catie collapses and has to endure one last nightmare battle with the Goddesses. Unlike the first two, though, this one isn’t hopeless – Catie has learned a new trick (Cast Handheart) that lets her flip the script and make the fight hopeless for them instead. However, this is subverted in that it is actually NOT the last battle- there is an entire Epilogue chapter ending in the True Final Boss, Leigon.
• The Chronicles of Inotia 4: Assasin of Berkel: After successfully killing Alexander and having an epic Battle in the Center of the Mind with Chaos Strider Moar, you end up on a snowfield, fighting your way through polar bears till you reach your destination where the big reveal waits... then the game just ends on a cliffhanger until Elinia takes you to the post-game dungeon.
• The fight against the Lunar Dragon (somewhat inexplicably renamed the Time Devourer in the English localization) from Chrono Cross is an epic Final Boss fight, spanning several locales and stages, and packing a lot of hard-hitting attacks and Elements. Afterwards, there's the fight against the real Time Devourer (the Lavos one), who doesn't hit nearly as hard, and who is defeated by playing a song.
• As part of Contact's Gainax Ending, it's Terry, the Player Character, who has finally gotten sick of you controlling him. You knock him out with little effort; in fact, he has no way to harm you at all.
• Operation C, the Contra game for the original Game Boy, has you fight a giant robot guardian before confronting the alien leader. The alien leader itself is just a giant Brain in a Jar with no form of defense whatsoever.
• Crysis 3: After the fight with the Alpha Ceph, which is very much a genuine challenge, the True Ceph warship, for all its buildup in-story, turns out to be this. You hack into Archangel, line it up, and fire. There is so much time to aim that you have to deliberately refuse to fire to lose.
• In the NES version Crystalis, after destroying Emperor Draygon, you have to destroy the Tower's central computer DYNA, which is much easier than Draygon. The Game Boy Color version reverses this as Draygon is fought after DYNA.
• In Dark Forces, you beat the final level's boss: the main general who's been the game's Big Bad, though of course Darth Vader outranks him. He's got a suit that can do everything his Dark Trooper robots can, plus can shoot heat seeking missiles, up to ten at a time. How dead will he make you? Very. But once you get past him, you must get to a ship and escape. Guarding it? A single Imperial Officer. The weakest of the human enemies, with your standard blaster he goes down in one shot (Officers take one, Stormtroopers take two, Commandos take three.) He is the actual last enemy you will "fight." Of course, if you barely survived the Big Bad on your last life, get taken out by this chump, and must retake the level from the beginning, you will cry like a baby.
• In Daikatana, Kage Mishima appears as a strong Duel Boss. In the portable version, he has two forms and can do a lot of damage to Hiro. After the fight, Mikiko betrays Hiro and can be defeated in a couple of seconds on both versions.
• The last boss of Demon's Souls is Fallen King Allant below the Nexus. When you reach him, he's a pathetic swollen mess that can barely move or attack you with his undersized sword. It's just meant to showcase what Allant's corruption did to him and a warning to the player against choosing the evil ending. The powerful body double he uses beforehand is considered by many the actual Final Boss.
• In Dark Souls III, the Final Boss of The Ringed City expansion, which is intended to be played after the main game, is Slave Knight Gael, a Lightning Bruiser with mountains of HP and a devastating moveset who more than earns his title as the final enemy of the entire Dark Souls trilogy. However, after Gael is defeated, if you explore his enormous boss arena, you can find a ruined church where you can duel Shira, Knight of Filianore, a friendly NPC from earlier in the expansion who attacks you for breaking the spell of stasis on the city and thus dooming it to ruin. While she's quite tough as far as NPC duels go, she's still nothing compared to the apocalyptic battle with Gael, and the fight is meant more as a tragic denouement to your journey than a climactic battle.
• The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard gives us Nafaalilargus, a dragon. After defeating him, you move on to the final boss, who is a fat old man.
• Eastern Exorcist have Lu Yun-chuan's main campaign, which revolves around his quest to hunt down the Mandrill King, lord of demonkind and his story's Big Bad. He does eventually face the Mandrill King in a difficult boss fight, but after it ends it turns out Lu's Evil Former Friend, Zhang Huai-zhou, is the real traitor who sell him out in the prologue. And is the game's actual last boss.
• The PS3 version of Eternal Sonata turns Frederic into this by upgrading the previous battle from a rather easy battle against something close to a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere in the Xbox 360 version to a much harder fight to the death with the Evil Overlord. If you managed to beat him, the Post-Final Boss should be a walk in the park for you.
• Lucien in Fable II, with the Giant Shard serving as the actual final boss. Lucien, despite being the main villain of the game, does nothing but talk.
• Fallout:
  • In the Fallout 3 DLC Operation Anchorage, you deal with Sibley and his band of Brotherhood Outcasts after defeating the ultra-tough General Jingwei in the simulation. Since Sibley and his squad are each only about as powerful as a low- to mid-tier Enclave soldier, and you just looted a vault full of T-51 Power Armor and Gauss Rifles, they don't put up much of a fight.
  • In Fallout: New Vegas, if the players take the House or Independent ending, they'll have to deal with General Oliver after dealing with Legate Lanius. Oliver himself is relatively weak, but is accompanied by NCR Veteran Rangers wielding Brush Guns (one of the best rifles of the game). Like Lanius, however, the player can choose to talk him into simply leaving. If not, you'll at least have your own Elite Mecha-Mooks to back you up, and chances are you'll be tough enough to take them down yourself.
• Seen in the PC version of Far Cry. In the final level, you fight (in order) the mutated, superpowered Big Bad, then go through That One Level fighting several Giant Mooks with rocket launchers and Demonic Spider snipers, then have to fight through a final gauntlet of Elite Mooks, before you finally come to the final villain; a weak scientist armed with a submachine gun who goes down in one bullet.
• Fate/Grand Order
  • The Orleans singularity climaxes with an amazingly grueling battle against Jeanne d'Arc Alter (Ruler), who has A) a class type that resists most attacks, B) incredible attack stats, C) excellent buffing skills, and D) two Evil Wyvern minions that she can empower along with herself using her skills... The Grail itself has to be won from her sidekick, Gilles de Rais (Caster), who has A) a class type with exactly one advantage, B) poor stats all around, C) only weak debuffing skills, and D) no minions at all.
  • The Septem singularity follows your very first encounter with a Demon Pillar, an enemy with completely unknown class advantages/disadvantages due to its non-standard class type, with a battle against a fairly normal Saber, Altera.
  • A lesser example comes at the very end of the first story arc in the form of Human King Goetia. His health bar isn't as intimidating as it actually looks with bond-based damage bonuses for the chapter, his class is Caster instead of Beast, and if you've beaten the previous boss without any troubles he'll go down without much fuss.
  • The Shimousa Pseudo-Singularity ends in a Duel Boss fight between your chapter ally Miyamoto Musashi versus the "Nameless Saber" Sasaki Kojirou after the main duo of villains Caster of Limbo and Avenger Amakusa have been defeated and their plans for timeline-destroying mayhem foiled. To drive it home, Kojirou has health and stats closer to a boss fought from the Okeanos/London period of the game complete with only a single health bar and standard skills rather the multiple health bars and gimmick abilities of the previous major bosses of the sub-singularity.
  • The final foe of the Olympus Lostbelt is Caenis, and while they're nothing to sneeze at considering they're packing multiple health bars and various gimmicks, after the titanic battles with both Lostbelt King Zeus and Kirschtaria Wodime, the latter of which can easily cause a Total Party Kill, not to mention the other gimmick fights of the Lostbelt combined with increased difficulty she comes across as a fairly straightforward final battle. In-story, they're basically only fighting to wrap up the final bits of plot revelations as a final test of the heroes' resolve to soldier on and as a tribute to Kirschtaria's memory.
  • Tezcatlipoca is fought as the final boss of the Nahui Mictlan Lostbelt, which is mainly to wind things down for the player after the intensely long multiphase battle against ORT. The main thing at stake isn't the world or the lives of everyone in a world, it's just the proof the protagonist can persevere and earn their right to become a Master worthy of wielding Command Spells again.
• The Final Fantasy series has this in spades:
  • The Meteor Parasite in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. Before you can deliver the final blow, you get whisked away to the Final Boss. After beating the last boss, you get transported back to the parasite, who is still in critical condition, being at 1 HP and unable to fight back at all. All it takes is a single attack to finish it off.
  • In Final Fantasy VII, after defeating the trope-naming One-Winged Angel form of Sephiroth, Cloud's mind is invaded by Sephiroth's consciousness in a last-ditch effort on the villain's part. During the fight's intro, Cloud's Limit Break meter fills up, and the game unlocks Omnislash for you even if you don't have it normally. If the player stands there and does nothing, Sephiroth hits Cloud with a gravity-based move, which Cloud counters, making the player win the fight anyways. What's more, Sephiroth has only 1 HP at this point — his Final Boss form has 80,000 — so he'll go down if you so much as breathe on him.
  • After you fight Braska's Final Aeon in Final Fantasy X, you meet Yu Yevon in a fight that is impossible to lose. While FF7 stacked the deck by making your opponent weak, this game does the opposite and bestows infinite lives on your party. The only way to Game Over is if you deliberately inflict "Petrify" on all of your own characters.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has several examples:
    • Lahabrea serves as this for the 2.0 A Realm Reborn storyline. You've just defeated Gaius and the Ultima Weapon, a fight that, when it was new, was relatively difficult, when Lahabrea shows up expecting to finish the job with you weakened. When you engage him, Hydaelyn blesses you with the power of the crystals, giving you constantly regenerating HP and increased damage, as well as Lahabrea having almost no mechanics aside from one AoE nuke and not doing enough damage otherwise to be a threat. For all you're told to beware him, he turns out to be tragically easy, coming out to maybe fifteen seconds of mindlessly dumping damage into a single enemy. Subverted as of patch 6.1 as part of the dungeon reworks for A Realm Reborn, where Lahabrea was reworked into his own solo instance and is now a genuinely challenging boss fight where he manages to temporarily kill the Warrior of Light before being revived by Hydaelyn.
    • Rosalinde is an example specific to the Rogue/Ninja class quests for Heavensward. She's the Big Bad for those quests, but acts as more of a non action sort until the end of that storyline, with her Dragon Redway being a much bigger threat to you. Rosalinde finally stands up to you on her own in the level 60 quest, after you've done enough damage to Redway that he tries to escape, which she reacts to by killing him on the spot - and then you're treated to a fight that is nearly identical to every other Marauder NPC you've fought across the game before then, with less health than Redway and no unique skills other than the use of the Holmgang skill to pin you in place for a few seconds. The fight against her ends up feeling less like a natural progression of the final fight and more like the writers throwing their hands up and tossing her into the fight for no real reason other than to tie up the loose ends the questline would leave if she survived.
    • Stormblood's post-game has Tsukuyomi serve this role, in comparison to Nidhogg at the end of Heavensward. Whereas King Thordan was a Climax Boss but Nidhogg served as the proper Final Boss, the fight against Zenos as Shinryu definitively concludes Stormblood's main story, with the next three patches' worth of story spent tying up loose ends. To some degree the same can be said of Elidibus in Shadowbringers, though Stormblood suffers from this more - Nidhogg was a threat all throughout Heavensward and Elidibus at least has some setup as the next primary villain after Emet Selch/Hades is dealt with, while in comparison Tsukuyomi comes out of absolutely nowhere as the amnesiac Yotsuyu very suddenly regains her memories and immediately goes off the deep end by channeling a Primal.
    • In Endwalker, after defeating the Endsinger and saving Etheirys and the rest of the universe from oblivion, your old enemy Zenos challenges you to one final duel. While he has some difficult to dodge attacks, it's a relatively easy battle to win, as you are given multiple chances to freely revive; the fight is basically there to wrap up Zenos' character arc.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade has Idunn, who is fought to activate the game's Golden Ending. Though her stats are actually higher than those of the true Big Bad, Zephiel, she is also weak to anti-dragon weapons, including the legendary weapons the player needs to have access to if they want to fight her to begin with. This means she can usually be brought down very quickly. Much of the level before you meet her is essentially telling you her story, portraying her as a Tragic Monster who deserves to be free and had little to no role in being used for evil by Zephiel.
  • Fire Emblem Heroes: In the thirteenth and final chapter of Book IV, the Arc Villain, Freyja, is fought and defeated in the fourth part of the chapter. The fifth and final part is a battle against recurring antagonist Loki.
• The climax of Franken has the player defeat Eclypson, the God of the Moon that's been responsible for all of the recent destruction in your province out of envy at being unable to create life. Once he's defeated, however, it turns out he has created his first life using Human Resources, which is then fought in a less-dramatic fashion before the game ends.
• The effective Final Boss of most Gradius games is either a Cores-and-Turrets Boss or an indestructible giant walker of some sort, as in the vast majority of games the Bacterian emperor (or whatever serves as a stand-in for it, such as Gofer from Gradius II or Original Visions of Ultimate Monster from Gradius Gaiden) puts up little or no effort to guard itself. Doom from Salamander 2 is a major exception.
• Guild Wars 2:
  • In the finale of Living World Season 1, the final boss is Scarlet Briar's Prime Hologram fought on the deck of the Breachmaker. Its defeat badly wounds Scarlet who flees into the ship itself. Chasing after her, a short fight ensues with Scarlet throwing grenades while lying prone on the ground, too injured to move.
  • The climax of The Icebrood Saga is Dragonstorm, in which you battle the twin Elder Dragons, Jormag and Primordus, and their champions Ryland and Braham, in a gambit to lure the dragons into a Mutual Kill. It's followed by one last chapter, Champion's End, containing a relatively simple fight against Ryland, who refuses to stand down even after Jormag's destruction.
• In Heart of Ice, the Fisticuffs Boss fight with The Watcher during a Dying Dream. If you got at least 5 of the 6 artifacts, though, the True Final Boss comes immediately afterwards.
• The Grand Prix races in Jak X: Combat Racing serve as the equivalent of bosses. After completing the Yellow Cup Grand Prix and earning the antidote you've been seeking the entire game, Mizo steals the antidote and drives off. You need to pursue and kill him to get the antidote back. Although Mizo's vehicle has more health than normal, this section is still easier than the preceding Grand Prix as Mizo's weapons do less damage than normal and there are no other competitors to worry about.
• After defeating Greg Nightmare in Killer7, the following opponents are Zero-Effort Bosses that you simply point at and shoot, particularly the Last Shot Smile, who is built up as the final Heaven Smile, but who is defeated by simply chasing him down a linear corridor until he's cornered and then firing away.
• The King of Fighters:
  • The King of Fighters '97: If Orochi is defeated with Kyo Kusanagi while playing as Team Japan (Kyo, Benimaru and Daimon), then Iori Yagami will show up for a one-on-one duel with Kyo to tie up loose ends. Losing against Iori also doesn't count as a strike against the player.
  • The King of Fighters '99: After defeating Krizalid with a standard team^note Example: K', Maxima, Benimaru and Shingo, the player will face either Kyo Kusanagi or Iori Yagami depending on the score the player achieves.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, the "real" Final Boss is Xion, with her fight and subsequent destruction at the hands of Roxas fueling the emotional climax of the narrative. The fight with Riku afterwards is significantly easier and shorter since he has one form compared to Xion's four and is much less aggressive with his attack patterns. The confrontation is there mainly to tie the ending into the prologue of Kingdom Hearts II.
  • The Armored Ventus Nightmare in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] has far less HP than Young Xehanort and is a bit easier to deal with. It only exists to resolve leftover damage caused by Xehanort's plans after they've been thwarted.
• This is seen in the post-credits sequence in Lands of Lore III. After defeating Jakel and saving the Lands from destruction, your character has one last fight with Evil Chancellor Lord Geron after you catch him trying to flee with the crown jewels. This is pretty well justified and a decent way to end the series, given that long-time fans have been waiting 3 games for the chance to shank that condescending, Obviously Evil Devil in Plain Sight asshat.
• The Legend of Heroes - Trails:
  • After two phases of the Final Boss of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, Cassius Bright finally shows up to deliver a Big Damn Heroes moment and weaken it. You then fight a third phase, where the boss has vastly lower HP and Defense, doesn't even attempt to fight back, and you start with all your S-Crafts fully charged. It's less of a fight and more of a playable Coup de Grâce Cutscene.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel:
    • Cold Steel has a proper final boss fight against Loa Erebonius, which puts everything you've learned to the test. Subsequently, however, the story continues going and eventually pits the player against a string of three more bosses that largely serve to introduce the concept of Divine Knight combat, as an early sample before its larger role in later titles. While not as difficult as Loa Erebonius, they're actually fairly challenging bosses for this trope, and the last is a Heads I Win, Tails You Lose that ends the story on a cliffhanger to set up the sequel.
    • Cold Steel II one-ups this by having two post-final chapters. The "Finale" is the real conclusion of the main plotline and features a massive, five-phase final boss battle, but it's not the end of the game. You then have the Divertissement, which is a brief And Now for Someone Completely Different sequence, and the Epilogue, which features a repeatable Post-Final Level and a reskinned version of Loa Erebonius as the endboss, which mostly serves as a free-play mode to use all the game's characters freely one final time.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Calamity Ganon is more or less the actual final boss, the Dark Beast Ganon fight that follows is the denouement, since you're given an 11th-Hour Superpower that kills the boss in eight hits and he only has one attack, a Wave-Motion Gun Breath Weapon that can One-Hit Kill you, but isn't particularly difficult to avoid.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom more or less follows in its predecessor's footprints, with the Demon Dragon fight being more of a cinematic spectacle the player happens to get to control rather than an actual fight. His weak spots are incredibly obvious and unguarded, his attacks are slow and easily dodged, and if the player hasn't grabbed the Master Sword in the main quest before this point, they will be given it at the start of this battle. It is somewhat more difficult than Dark Beast Ganon as the Demon Dragon's body is covered in health-draining Gloom, but for all intents and purposes, when the player defeats Demon King Ganondorf they have effectively beaten the game.
• The Negativatron of LittleBigPlanet 2. After destroying its final phase, you're dropped into the belly of the beast... where you only need to land on top of its heart to finish the fight.
• Live A Live:
  • In the Wild West Chapter, after defeating O. Dio with Sundown Kid, Mad Dog challenges him for an actual duel as he's promised earlier. You can choose to flee instead of killing him; if you do so, he'll meet Sundown again after the credits and the two have a proper battle again which also isn't hard. After this, Sundown shoots at O. Dio causing it to run away.
  • At the end of the Final Chapter, after a long and difficult battle against the Odio, the Lord of Dark, you either fight Odio's "true form" (Oersted, the protagonist of the Middle Ages chapter, who gets no benefit from Health/Damage Asymmetry and goes down in a few hits), or spare Odio and end up fighting all the game's previous major bosses from the previous chapters (who have not leveled up in the interim and thus pose only a very minor threat). The remake changes this in the latter, where after the Boss Rush you move onto a True Final Boss that serves as a bigger climax than the ones before it.
• Lunar:
  • The final battle against Zophar in Lunar: Eternal Blue is a long, grueling, 3-phase fight that can take up to half an hour depending on your party's strength. After this fight, you must fight one more, extremely easy form, which has very low HP and a single attack that causes low damage.
  • In Lunar: Silver Star Story, after finally defeating Ghaleon for the last time, you still have to deal with an Ax-Crazy Althena. Just walking up the stairs to pick a fight with her gets you one-shot killed, and you have to play your ocarina to remind her who you are.
• In Manhunt, after a tense cat-and-mouse battle against the monstrous, completely insane Piggsy, the Director himself is an overweight schmuck who takes a few potshots at you with a pistol as you chase him around and finally eviscerate him with a chainsaw.
• Majyuo have the player assuming the role of Abel, a Hunter of Monsters out to save his family from a powerful Demon King, by allowing himself to be transformed into various demonic forms and battling numerous enemies until the last stage. Abel has defeated the Demon King, the Big Bad of the picture, but he still need to face one last boss - his daughter, Iria, who's been converted from human to a succubi.
• After beating the Elder Princess Shroob in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, successfully repelling the Shroob invasion, and returning to the present, Elder Princess Shroob's remains merge with Bowser in a last-ditch attempt to kill the Mario Bros. and their younger counterparts. Interestingly, the player is given no turns to actually attack (or heal), and instead must damage the boss entirely with counter-attacks and Deadly Dodging; despite the gimmick (or perhaps because of it), this battle is still much easier than what preceded it.
• The last marauder you face Mass Effect 3. After the long, difficult wave-based encounter where the game throws everything it has at you (including three of the one-hit-kill Banshees at once) that serves as the game's final boss, there's a story-based sequence where an injured Shepard, armed only with a pistol, has to fight through a few more enemies, who have greatly reduced health. The only way to lose is to just stand there and not fight back. Of course, this is followed by a dialog boss fight against the game's main antagonist, so it's only post-final-boss if you're talking in terms of combat.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man Zero 3: After you beat Omega, the Guardians paralyze him to make him use up the rest of his power. Then you can land the final blow with the Z-Saber.
  • In the third Mega Man Star Force game, after defeating Crimson Dragon for the first time, you're thrown into battle with it a second time. The catch is that you're permanently Finalized, cannot have your HP reduced below 1, and your Noise Force Big Bang is buffed to be a One-Hit Kill against it (with the caveat that nothing else can kill Crimson Dragon in that state: You HAVE to finish it with Red Gaia Eraser/Black End Galaxy).
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater features a showdown after the final boss. Ocelot jumps on board the escape plane and challenges Snake to a duel with two revolvers, one with one bullet and one totally empty. No matter what, Snake and Ocelot are unhurt (either the bullet is a blank or you can miss on purpose), and the ending proper starts immediately afterwards.
• Metroid likes this trope:
  • Metroid Fusion: After a proper final battle against the SA-X, the expected Escape Sequence occurs and the player is given three minutes to navigate to Samus's gunship before the space colony crashes into SR-388. Upon arriving at the docking bay, however, Samus is ambushed by an Omega Metroid that had gotten loose earlier and is nearly killed. After receiving an 11th-Hour Superpower by absorbing the SA-X, the player battles the Omega Metroid, which only has one attack and goes down quickly.
  • Metroid: Other M: The Metroid Queen is the main final boss in terms of gameplay challenge, the subsequent confrontation with Madeline Bergman is just a first-person sequence that ends the moment you actually target her, which causes a cutscene to play and lead into the ending. If the player doesn't know what they're actually supposed to do, the four unique Elite Mooks (Desbrachian supersoldiers) acting as bodyguards may pose a challenge, but even they can still be knocked out of the way easily once you figure out the proper trick to them. However, there is a Playable Epilogue afterwards with its own True Final Boss, Phantoon.
  • Metroid: Zero Mission: Downplayed. The escape sequence after beating Mecha Ridley ends with you having to fight two Gray Space Pirates in order to unlock the door to the Ship Bay so you can escape. Said Space Pirates can actually easily kill you and force you to fight Mecha Ridley again.
• After you defeat Porky Minch in Mother 3, he taunts you by telling you that his "son", the Masked Man and Lucas' twin brother will finish the job for him. The battle itself isn't particularly difficult, requiring Lucas to heal himself several times, but it's easily the most emotional part of what's already an emotional game.
• Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 has Naruto fighting the seven remaining Tailed Beasts — Kaiju, in other words — then Tobi, the man controlling them. Naruto is powered up for the Tailed Beasts, with fast movement and huge attack power. He retains that same overpowered state fighting Tobi, who is meant for normal head-to-head play. Even with the AI turned way up, Naruto can combo on Tobi for such ridiculous damage meant for the Tailed Beasts that the fight is pathetically short and easy by comparison.
• At the end of ObsCure Final Exam, after defeating the Final Boss, you face Principal Friedman. He's just an ordinary human being and, other than having a lot of health and a decent dodge roll, fights more or less like a basic enemy. The fight is just a chance to beat him up for causing the whole mess.
• In OFF, the Queen when you eventually fight her serves as the proper final boss and last challenge of the game. After you kill her, you go on to kill Hugo, a defenseless child. Then, you are given the choice between siding with either the Batter or the Judge. They are both significantly easier than the Queen.
• Peret em Heru: For the Prisoners: If you allowed one or more people to die, then you will have to face their zombified form after finishing off the Final Boss. All of them are individually weaker, with most of the danger lying in the fact that if you messed up one too many times, you will end up having to fight seven of them all in a row.
• Persona:
  • In Persona 3, after the party defeats Nyx Avatar, the protagonist ultimately faces the true form of Nyx alone. It deals 4-digit damage every turn (in a game where the heroes can only have 3-digit HP), but The Power of Friendship grants the hero the Universe Arcana, allowing the hero to continue fighting and eventually becoming outright immune to attack. All the player has to do is wait a few turns until they can use their only ability, Great Seal, which instantly ends the battle when used, but at the expense of the hero having to sacrifice himself to do it.
  • Persona 4 ends the same way in the True Ending, wherein The Power of Friendship allows the protagonist's initial Persona, Izanagi, to transform into Izanagi-no-Okami (Great God Izanagi). After a few turns of eating 999 damage spells that would instantly KO him in regular gameplay, the hero unleashes one final attack, Myriad Truths, to wipe away all of the lies and deceit in humanity, instantly ending the battle.
  • Persona 5 operates similarly with its True Ending. After the party defeats Yaldabaoth, it simply gets up again and floors the party with a powerful attack. Joker draws on The Power of Friendship to stand back up and unleash his Persona, which evolves into the much larger and more powerful Satanael. Not only does it match Yaldabaoth in size, it completely nullifies Yaldaboath's retaliation. The final combat action in this game is to deliver the killing blow with Sinful Shell, which is the only action you can take.
  • Persona 5 Royal has a Post-Final Boss at the end of its third trimester. After defeating Maruki twice, he fuses with his Persona Adam Kadmon and attacks the party one more time. However, Adam Kadmon can't reduce anyone's HP below one, and Adam Kadmon's defense is so high that attacks will only do Scratch Damage to it. The player just needs to hold on for a few turns before the boss is automatically defeated. Right after that, there's one more battle between Joker and Maruki without their Personas, resulting in a Combat Breakdown to just punching each other as Maruki has a Villainous Breakdown.
  • Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth uses a variant of the Post-Climax Boss seen in Persona 4. If you drop the Big Bad Enlil's HP low enough, she will prevent you from battling and proceed to remove every direct combat member in your party, leaving the support Persona users and Hikari in the scene. Hikari will then step in and confront Enlil alone, requiring you to use three support skills one by one from her to persuade Enlil with words, which seemingly have no effect. While after the first one Enlil just chastises her, for the next two she does absolutely nothing. Finally, the Persona 3 male and female protagonists, Persona 4 protagonist and Joker reappear to answer Hikari's call and finish Enlil off with a single unison attack.
• Pokémon
  • In Pokémon X and Y, after defeating the Champion, the player is thrown a parade to celebrate. However, at said parade, AZ, whom the player had encountered several times during their journey, requests a battle. This battle is significantly easier than the prior battle and the story will proceed regardless of the outcome. After the battle, he finally lets go of the anger in his heart about what happened 3000 years ago. Suddenly, from the sky floats down a Floette — and AZ collapses to his knees and cries with happiness, having finally been reunited with his friend after so long.
  • In Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, The Rival May/Brendan serves this role, challenging you to a battle after the credits and being around 10 levels lower than the Champion. They do use a Mega Evolution, but it's likely to be so underleveled it's hardly a threat. Also, like the above AZ fight, you don't even gain exp for this battle and the story will proceed regardless of the outcome. The fight mostly exists to wrap-up the rival's character arc.
  • After defeating the Final Boss of Pokémon Sun and Moon, Tapu Koko recognizes you as a Worthy Opponent and appears as your final encounter before the credits roll. You can catch it if you're so inclined, but the game will proceed regardless of the outcome (including simply running away). If not already caught, it will reappear right where it is any time after the credits roll.
  • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet:
    • After defeating the Final Boss of the main story, the player has a Cutscene Duel Mirror Boss between the boxart legendary you have been traveling with and an aggressive member of its species that had been bullying it before the events of the game sent out by the last line of defense for a Time Machine known as the Paradise Protection Protocol, which is scripted to be impossible to lose. The boss will always first use Taunt, followed up by a Giga Impact/Hyperbeam three turns later, with the player's legendary surviving the hit with one HP and getting a stat boost thanks to The Power of Friendship (or the move Endure if you use it in the former case) before the player is encouraged (and eventually forced if eight turns have passed) to use a Terastilized Dragon-type Tera Blast to end the battle.
    • In the DLC episode The Teal Mask, after two very tough fights against Kieran and Ogerpon, the chronological final battle is a rematch with Carmine. Her team is noticably weaker than that of the previous human boss, with one less party member, lower levels, and (if done after beating the main story) no held items, and you're also required to use the Ogerpon you just caught, turning her into more of a punching bag than a legitimate challenge. Unlike prior examples in the series, however, the player's battle with her is both unscripted and required to win.
    • In the Mochi Mayhem epilogue, Pecharunt's battle is far easier and manageable than all the opponents you faced so far in the Indigo Disk, including the battle with the possessed Nemona.
    • In terms of individual plotlines, Clavell is commonly seen as the true final boss of the Starfall Street plot. The subsequent boss, Penny, is much easier and works more as symbolic fight. It's Gameplay and Story Integration, since Penny themselves admits that they stand no chance against the player.
• The final showdown with Gates in Policenauts simply has you firing a single shot at him, after the brutal fight with Redwood moments ago. It's also a Hopeless Boss Fight, as the recoil from the shot only ends up propelling Jonathan backwards due to the lack of gravity and Gates immediate retaliates by shooting Jonathan in the shoulders and arms.
• Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. The Vizier is a very challenging final boss. The Dark Prince, on the other hand, is more of a moral challenge that the Prince defeats simply by walking away from the fight.
• In Quake IV, after the defeat of the Makron, your final opponent is the Hive Mind's brain, whose only defenses are its enemy spawns, and whom can be taken out with a few BFG blasts.
• The Biobliterator of Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal. You're given a Hovership to fight the thing, and even if it's destroyed, there's an extra Hovership you can get!
• Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc: Defeating final boss Reflux leaves Big Bad Andre completely vulnerable. He flees from you. To defeat him, all you need to do is make a funny face at him.
• Red Dead Redemption has a variant. After the final member of Dutch's gang is killed, the game makes a Time Skip and the player can hunt down a corrupt former "ally". This mission is a side-mission, but the credits won't roll before it's completed, making it more of a Playable Epilogue.
  • This is repeated in the second; after the climactic battle and Arthur’s death, there’s a Time Skip and you switch to playing as John, with the credits not rolling until you confront and kill The Mole.
• At the end of Resident Evil 2's B scenario, after you destroy the Tyrant T-103 and escape the exploding lab via train, the ending cutscene is interrupted when G's final, most grotesque form slithers onboard. Fortunately, it's a pushover.
• After the final boss fight against the Pig Star's core in Rocket Knight Adventures, you evacuate the space station before it explodes. However, the last piece of the core isn't done with you. The final challenge is to dodge its last desperate attacks, waiting for it to burn up in atmospheric re-entry.
• Shin Megami Tensei IV: The worst ending, bordering on No Final Boss for You, does this. After a trip to alternate dimensions where you deal with Pluto, a poisonous machine sent by God, and Kenji, an human-turned Energy Being who ruled over one of the alternate Tokyos, the White appear again and make an offer while revealing their true intentions: Use Pluto and Kenji, as well as their victims, to make Flynn pass the Despair Event Horizon and destroy the multiverse. If you accept, you beat up on a defenseless Magical Particle Accelerator until it breaks, causing a massive apocalypse. The proper final battle is Kenji, but the powerless Control Device is the last opponent of the route.
• Shadow of the Colossus: The Hopeless Boss Fight against the three knights after you've beaten the final Colossus. The kicker? YOU are the Colossus.
• This is seen in Silent Hill: Downpour. After defeating the giant "Wheelman" monster as the final boss, the game ends with Anne appearing and trying to murder you. She's a puny human armed with a pistol, while you're suddenly playing as The Bogeyman (who's at the same level of toughness as Pyramid Head was). Surprisingly, Anne still manages to put up a half-decent fight, although she has zero chance of actually killing you. So much so that intentionally letting her kill you earns you the secret Full Circle Reversal ending.
• All of the final targets in the Silent Scope games, which you have to take down with your last bullet.
• Skullgirls:
  • Most characters' Story Mode arcs culminate in a battle with Bloody Marie, the Skullgirl, in her three forms. After this fight in Squigly's story, though, one of Marie's Dragons named Double reveals that she was responsible for the death of Squigly and her family, and you fight her in the final match alongside Filia. Double's AI is very strong, though, so the battle is not a pushover.
  • Eliza's story mode goes one beyond this: after defeating Marie, Double appears again and reveals this time that Eliza killed the Divine Trinity, Double's masters, thousands of years before the game took place and you fight Double in a new area called Gehenna. Then, after that, Squigly and Filia mount a Big Damn Heroes attack on Eliza in her home, which you then fight as well. Then Eliza's ending plays, in which The Bad Guy Wins.
• Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Sonic and Tails' version of the game has multiple bosses back-to-back in the final level: the Death Ball, then Robotnik's Egg Mecha (which has two stages), and finally Robotnik's glorified escape pod. The escape pod is by far the easiest of the bunch — it doesn't attack at all, so the only challenge is timing your attacks so the rebound doesn't knock you off the crumbling platforms. Of course, if you're playing as Sonic and you have all the Chaos (or Super) Emeralds, then you face the True Final Boss immediately afterwards, and it's no pushover.
• South Park: The Fractured but Whole: The first phase of the final boss is the New Kid's past self in their King Douchebag persona from the previous game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, accompanied by Clyde, Craig and Kyle (and, during the last phase, Butters), which is often considered the hardest boss in the game. The real final boss, present Cartman and Kyle using the former's Mitch Conner persona, is more of a Post-Final Boss in comparison.
• In Space Invaders Infinity Gene, the sole enemy of the very final stage, "Back Mutation", is fought in the same reproduction of the original Space Invaders game played at the very beginning. True to the series' roots, it's moving so fast that failing to Lead the Target will inevitably cause it to reach the bottom row and kill the player. Whether or not the player succeeds, the ending scene will roll.
• Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals has a simple, easy one-on-one sword fight with Krux to wrap up the story.
• Street Fighter V has this in A Shadow Falls. Ryu fights Ken as the final opponent in A Shadow Falls after Ryu kills M. Bison, and the credits roll. After Ken is defeated, Ryu's headband falls onto the ground, and Ken says that he feels like Ryu does not need it anymore, but Ryu grabs the headband back, saying that he still might need it, and Ryu and Ken fist-bump.
• In the NES version of Strider, after defeating Big Bad Matic, the final task is to destroy Yggdrasil, the main ZAIN computer, which is only slightly more difficult than the previous ZAIN machines.
• Done occasionally in the Suikoden series:
  • In the good and bad endings of Suikoden II, you face Jowy after defeating the True Beast Rune, which is the final boss in the normal ending. In the former ending, he's a Puzzle Boss. In the latter, he's a fairly easy Duel Boss.
  • In Suikoden III, if you recruit all of the Stars of Destiny, you unlock a new campaign after beating the game, which culiminates in a relatively easy Duel Boss against Sasarai.
  • In Suikoden IV, after defeating the Giant Tree, you fight a duel with Troy during your escape from the final dungeon.
• Sunrider 4: The Captain's Return: The last enemy you face before the credits roll is the Widow, a nanomachine-enhanced Ryder piloted by a psychotic clone of the main character's dead ex-girlfriend. It's not a pushover by any means, as it possesses powerful attacks and needs to be killed three times before it will stay dead, but it's easier than the four-stage battle against Admiral Kuushana's fleet that came right before it.
• Super Robot Wars:
  • Super Robot Wars: Original Generation Gaiden: Neo Granzon, much easier than Dark Brain, which had around a Million HP and 30% HP Regen.
  • Super Robot Wars Z Jigoku-hen: Shikuu, the pilot of the Shiseiten, appears after beating up The Anti-Spiral King in the Grand Zamboa, who is the Final Boss of the game. Shikuu's fight isn't even a fight; you just need to survive four turns and the game is done (till Tengoku-hen at least).
• Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U: Master Core's final phase is a plain orb. That just sits there waiting for you to attack it until it has built up enough knock back to hit a blast line. Just don't idle or it unleashes a decently hard-to-dodge desperation attack that causes a sudden One-Hit Kill. After which, it blows itself up.
• Tales of:
  • In Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, after defeating Richter, you fight a Hopeless Boss Fight against Lloyd and Marta, followed by a Duel Boss against Ratatosk, which you don't even have to win. If you win that Hopeless Boss Fight, you get the game's absolute worst ending for your trouble.
  • Tales of the Abyss has an interesting variation on it. The final boss has two phases that work traditionally, but if you have both Luke and Tear in your party, there is a third phase that works like this, in which you're immortal and free to just pummel the boss, before Luke instantly kills the boss with his Mystic Arte when Tear finishes her song.
• Hwoarang and Violet's (Lee Chaolan) final stages in Tekken 4 aren't against Heihachi Mishima. In Hwoarang's case, he fights Jin in the underground parking lot following Heihachi and in Violet's case, he reveals himself as Lee and beats Heihachi at the arena before Combot goes haywire and Lee fights it as his final boss. Kazuya also has a fight against Jin following Heihachi but this is more down to plot than tying up loose ends (as the fights at Hon-Maru are the canonical conclusion of Tekken 4, albeit where Jin wins all of them).
• You face the real final boss of Tomb Raider I, the Giant Atlantean who is a legitimately difficult fight, at the beginning of the final stage and spend the rest of the level fleeing the pyramid before it collapses. About halfway through, you run into Natla, who has since sprouted devil wings and is carrying a bomb launcher, but even with the starting pistols, you'll take her down before she even manages an attack. If you happen to miss her sound bite, you'll probably assume she's just a regular enemy.
• Urban Reign: Once you get through with the last of the gangster bosses (a formidable swordmaster called Shinkai), it's time to confront the corrupt politician who's behind the current chaos. Although he uses a gun that can kill your character in one or two hits, it's easily dodged, and he'll go down with one hit. The whole mission only takes five seconds, so even if you fail, it's hardly a major effort to try again.
• Undertale: The effective final boss of the No Mercy path is Sans the skeleton, as the two bosses following this one, Asgore and Flowey, are killed automatically.
• In the endings of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines where you gun for him, LaCroix turns out to be an example of this after you've disposed of The Sheriff as the Final Boss. Whatever way it goes down, he's defeated with some dialogue and a cutscene.
• Wild ARMs 2 has Lord Blazer, fought after annihilating the main threat, the Kuiper Belt. While Lord Blazer himself is arguably a very large threat plot-wise, he is weak in battle, and the fight is scripted in that all you have to do to beat him is use a certain command multiple times.
• In WinBack: Covert Operations, after you defeat your traitorous CO, Cecile bursts into the room, but he can be curbstomped with the mounted machine guns once you get past the laser fences.
• In Wing Commander III, after completing the final mission, which is basically a homage to the Trench Run in A New Hope, you come face to face with a quartet of heavy fighters before you can jump home and complete the game. Under normal circumstances, these might be a legit threat, but at this point, they spawn with no missiles and you are flying a ship that is pretty close to a game-breaker.
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: The proper final boss in all endings is Eredin. In the bad ending, there is an additional boss fight against the Crone Weavess after.
• Wizard101:
  • The game has a double version of this trope for the world of Avalon. In the second-to-last dungeon, the player fights the insanely powerful Young Morganthe, and the fight is then followed by the much easier fight with Sir Malory. The final dungeon is also easy compared to the second-to-last (although Pendragon is tough without any healing spells) and there is even a fairly easy Dual Boss after him.
  • A more extreme version can be found at the end of Empyrea part 2. After defeating the insanely powerful Storm Titan (or rather just his weapon, which upon begin destroyed, severely weakens him further than he already was due to the Titanic Lullaby being sung by the primordial trees), who is practically impossible to defeat without a good team, strategy and setup, he ends up absorbing the Aethyr, the massive light and shadow magic-fueled storm surrounding Empyrea and transforms to become the even more powerful Aethyr Titan, who effortlessly defeats his parents, primordials Grandfather Spider and Grandmother Raven. And yet, by absorbing the Paradox Essence produced by the fusion of Mellori's light essence and the Bat's shadow essence, you become the Divine Paradox, an even more powerful entity that is essentially invincible against it. Even when pushed to low health, the game system forces you to heal back to full health. What's more, your spells can be fired off instantly, don't need to be charged up, and you can't be stunned. Though some people find the final confrontation disappointing due to the fight supposedly needing to be at least somewhat difficult.
• Xenogears: Urobolus, the post-final boss, is fought shorty after the party defeats Deus, who Fei confronts to rescue Elly and prove humanity's value to Krelian after his "No More Holding Back" Speech.
• In Xenosaga II, after a difficult two-round fight against the Patriarch, Jr. fights Albedo in a battle he can't lose.
• Xenoblade Chronicles:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 1 ends with a three-part battle against Zanza. However, the third form is identical to the second, and is vastly easier due to Shulk acquiring the True Monado between the second and third forms. It is technically possible to lose this fight, but it's very hard to do so.
  • The prequel DLC to Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Torna: The Golden Country, follows the regular final boss Malos with an unloseable fight against Gort, in which you only have Lora and her Blades, Jin and Haze, in the party.
• After a very lengthy Marathon Boss that was the final boss in all but name, Yakuza: Like a Dragon ends with Masato Arakawa, Ichiban's former master and adoptive brother figure. In contrast to the previous battle, this battle is a one-on-one fistfight reminiscent of final battles from the previous games and is effectively just a victory lap against an enemy that you basically have to try to lose to.
• Zeiram Zone ends with Iria finally confronting the powerful alien creature and intergalactic criminal known as Zeiram she had spent the entire game pursuing. After a lengthy boss battle, Iria finally defeats Zeiram, and it seems like the game's story could be wrapped... only for another quick level with Iria fighting a digital doppelganger of herself in the next level. And then the game ends.

Non-Video Game Examples

• Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: After the climactic fight with Black Manta and Evil Orm, King Kordax breaks free from his icy prison. All Kordax gets to do afterwards is catch his trident before Aquaman one-shots him.
• Attack on Titan: Eren and the Source of Organic Matter plays this to themselves in the Final Battle at Fort Salta, with Eren transforming into a modified Colossal Titan and the anomaly growing at a large size — all of which is a last-ditch effort for them to combine once again and continue the Rumbling. It only lasts for the penultimate chapter and the struggle took far less effort compared to 3 chapters dedicated to the Paradis/Marley alliance taking on Eren's earlier Founding Titan form with his army of Nine Titans. All of this is succeeded with Secretary Muller being the last figure to be antagonistic to the heroes, to which all it took for Armin to persuade him as the hero who took down Eren Yeager.
• Buso Renkin: The last battle of the series takes place after the Big Bad has been defeated, and Kazuki cured of his Victorization, is Kazuki's rematch with Papillon to finally resolve their rivalry from the end of the first arc.
• Critical Role: The second campaign ends with one of these: after defeating the Nonagon, a world-threatening villain who has hijacked a century-old sentinent city, the Mighty Nein get attacked by Caleb's former teacher, the evil wizard Trent Ikithon. After the hard battle against the Nonagon, them soundly defeating Trent and clearing up the loose ends is quite cathartic.
• The final battle of The Dark Knight takes place after Batman defeats the Joker and has him facing his former ally Harvey Dent, who has gone mad with vengeance as the new villain Two-Face and wants to punish Gordon for failing to stop Rachel's death at the Joker's hands by going after his family. When Batman can't talk Harvey down, he's forced to tackle him off a ledge to stop him from killing Gordon's son, leading to the Bittersweet Ending of the film.
• Dragon Ball Z: Future Trunks ends up searching for his timeline's Cell. He's only there just to show Trunks doing clean-up and is absolutely not a threat to the much more experienced Trunks.
• The Dungeons & Dragons adventure path Age of Worms ends with a battle against the worm-god Kyuss, an extremely difficult battle. Once the players have defeated him, the prince of the city of Alhaster challenges them to a duel for dominion of the city. However, he's four levels lower than the party should be at this point, and gives up rather quickly — he's basically just doing this so he can say that he didn't hand over the city without a fight, and sees himself as indebted to the party anyway.
• Half-Life: Full Life Consequences: The Freeman brothers defeat the explicitly-called-such Final Boss together, only for Gordon to be killed by the "next boss" in a Sequel Hook. In the Iction machinima, the two are represented as Wallace Breen, the Big Bad of Half-Life 2 and the G-Man, respectively.
• The climax of The Incredibles is the title characters versus the final Omnidroid. Afterwards is a short confrontation with Syndrome where Jack-Jack awakens his powers and Mr. Incredible throws a car at Syndrome, knocking Syndrome into his plane's turbine and blowing up both of them.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Golden Wind: Scolippi, who Mista encounters, debuts in a flashback that's shown after Giorno defeated Diavolo.
  • Steel Ball Run: Alternate Diego Brando is the last opponent Johnny must face to prevent him from using the Corpse to finish Valentine's work.
  • JoJolion: The Radio Gaga is the final threat of the story, but its apperance takes place before the events of the series, which is shown after Toru was killed.
• In Kamen Rider Revice, Big Bad Giff is defeated in episode 46, with four episodes to wrap up the plot around Ikki losing his memories. After Vice figures out that Ikki's memories will return if their contract is nullified and he dies, he intentionally pulls to get Ikki to defeat him, leading to bittersweet final battle between Ikki and Vice which neither is actually taking seriously and that's just a way for them to have fun one last time and say their goodbyes each other before the latter passes.
• In Naruto after Kaguya and Black Zetsu are sealed away, Madara dies of his wound and Obito undergoes Redemption Equals Death, Naruto has one final battle against Sasuke.
• In the third season of Sailor Moon, the Big Bad is defeated two episodes before the season ends. The final episode has one more daimon for the Sailor Guardians (and Tuxedo Mask) to fight, but compared to the real villain, it is hardly a threat at all.
• Played with in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, as Negascott is fought by Scott before Gideon in the comics. In this film however, Negascott confronts regular Scott after Gideon's defeat and they prepare to duke it out... And subverted when no actual battle occurs. Negascott and regular Scott are seen making plans for later on in the week and regular Scott mentions that Negascott's actually a pretty nice guy.
• Way of the Dragon featured the iconic fight between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. After Tang and Colt's climactic duel, Tang faces off very briefly against the Mafia boss in a short gun vs throwing dart bout before the boss is arrested and taken in.
• The majority of Yu-Gi-Oh! animes include a duel between the protagonist and another good guy at the end, after the Big Bad has been defeated, in order to tie up any loose ends the adventure left unsolved. What these duels share in common that they're friendly matches between good friends that are done to resolve the few issues left that weren't solved by defeating the Big Bad and Greater-Scope Villain, with said issues depending on the anime/series.
• Star Wars:
  • Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax is the last threat the Empire had to offer, who organized what remaining forces he has on Jakku in a final battle against the Rebellion, now known as the New Republic. He was dangerous, but compared to the fearsome Sith like Vader and Palpatine, he was nothing.
  • In the Original Trilogy the last named villain to die is the competent but unexceptional Admiral Firmus Piett, killed by an A-Wing crashing into his bridge shortly after the Dark Lords of the Sith had already fallen.
• In Air Force One, after killing Korshunov and the remaining terrorists and the F-15s fending off enemy fighters, Marshall and the others attempt to escape the doomed plane, only for Gibbs to reveal himself as The Mole at the last minute, leading to a short fight where Marshall has to subdue Gibbs before finally escaping.
• Spider-Man: Far From Home has Mysterio as the very last antagonist in the entire Infinity Saga, but compared to Thanos — the stakes are far less since its just one human being with convincing special effects that Spider-Man has to defeat, compared to a genocidal titan that took multiples armies and superpowered beings for him to finally go down.
• In the final episode The Owl House, "Watching and Dreaming", features Big Bad Emperor Belos defeated by Luz when she gains the remaining power of the Titan. Belos ends up suffering a Villainous Breakdown, both mentally and physically, when he realizes he's lost. His body starts melting in the boiling rain of the Demon Realm, begging Luz to spare his life. At this point, Luz sees that Belos is beyond saving — again, both mentally and physically. What's left of Belos is stomped on by Eda, King, and Raine before the plot moves into its Distant Finale. Even if they hadn't, it's clear that Belos was done for; his death scene was simply to tie up a loose end and ensure that the audience knows that he's been Killed Off for Real.
• Teen Titans (2003) has a unique example. The unnamed monster that the Titans face is the last antagonist of the final season after the actual Big Bad The Brain and his Legion of Doom are defeated. However, the monster is different from the norm of your usual Post-Final Boss in that he's considerably more difficult to defeat and the episode ends on a cliffhanger with Beast Boy joining the fight against it with no actual resolution. Meanwhile, the Slade-bot is the personal last foe that Beast Boy faces.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): For the sixth season, Fast Forward, Sh'Okanabo is the climactic Big Bad the Turtles have to fight and defeat in the second-to-last episode of the season. After that, for the final actual episode of the season, Torbin Zixx, a less powerful foe than Sh'Okanabo, is the final Fast Forward rogue they confront. Ultimately, Zixx's story is wrapped up without the Turtles even having to fight him in a spectacular battle but instead, tricking him and getting him into serious trouble with an alien crime boss to completely wrap up the sixth season.

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